Every morning when i wake up to do my work i think about exactly that. I want to talk about what Refugee Programs fit in the context of those threats. We heard Refugee Programs described as purely humanitarian and optional i am here among other things to suggest to you that the Refugee Program is a vital part of our Foreign Policy and National Security. Lets talk about the specific syriac case. The 4 million refugees now dispersed throughout the middle east and youre on the hole a victim of individuals sworn to destroy us in the United States. They are scattered in the middle east and europe, 400,000 syrian refugee children are not in school. They do not need to dwell long on what the consequences with Human Trafficking in radicalization, with risks of harms which should be intuitive to this body. Therefore refugee admissions are a critical element of regional stability stabilizing the regions where these individuals are located, an important consequence of the United States, with european allies who are facing this problem imminently, talking about taking 10,000, roughly, in the United States, many of my european colleagues are dealing with many times that in their borders and in many cases without control at all. 10,000 we are talking about is 1 4 who are currently refugees, and even smaller fraction of a number of syrians displayed within syria or elsewhere in the world. We represent 1 to 300 of 1 and the overall population in United States so i would suggest to fail, to admit refugees were the most immediate and severe victims of that sort of terrorism, those sorts of threats would feed a vital part of the battlefields to the very people seeking to destroy us. In order to admit those refugees we need to do it safely and that is a critical topic of this hearing today. I am here to talk about refugees and more generally about our immigration system in what we do have been doing to ensure those who seek the benefit of coming to the United States and saying to the United States are not those who mean us harm, threats to the National Security or otherwise threats to our society. In fact refugees go for a very lengthy process involving multiple interviews and multiple screenings, they are checked against a databases of United StatesLaw Enforcement, Intelligence Community, customs and border protection, state Department Advisory services and many of these are tools that for example when we talk about september relevance did not exist at that time. Even when we talk about individuals who came in 20092010, some of the most powerful tools we use now are tools that were not in existence at this time. Let me talk about one particular example with a tool we call the interagency check, that is now used in the case of virtually every see irian admitted as refugees in the case of every iraqi admitted as a refugee, that sort of checked those against the entire universe, Intelligence Holdings and lawenforcement holdings in the United States, and the effectiveness of the use of tools, along the 2,000 or so who have not been admitted, 30 individuals denied out right. They fail be the check or interview process, several hundred are on hold and fraud detection, National Security directive conduct a more thorough investigation of those cases before making a final decision and many of those may end a being denied because they resolve the concerns of those individuals. I am look forward to talking in more detail, these are vital issues and want to provide this committee and the American People and the insurance they require so we can engage in strategically important effort of refugees. Thank you. The chair recognizes the director. Good morning, chairman mccaul, distinguished Ranking Members, thank you for the opportunity to discuss international indeed intense security efforts to confront challenges on a global stage. I am honored to provide a review of international operations, highlight a program, based on 20 years as a Law Enforcement officer, one of the most critical Security Programs at this point in history. And there is more granularity for director rodriguezs new programs since 9 11 and the vetting process we had overseas. Isis focused on detecting in deterring threats for the nations borders. To that end we deploy approximately 250 special agents, investigative staff, 62 offices, and international staff, and foreign Law Enforcement counterparts, to detect, disrupt and dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations and individuals that mean harm. And deployment of officers, diplomatic posts, security act theories and provide advice and training to state department colleagues. This Critical Mission is accomplished by Security Program we refer to as sb, the primary purpose to identify terrorists and criminals and others ineligible for a visa prior to their travel. They place investigators on the front line of defense to exploit terrorist and criminal organizations through the visa adjudication process which is one of our first opportunities to assess whether central visitor her immigrant poses a potential threat. The u. S. Government continually that applicants from the time they submit their application to the time they make their travel arrangements to the time they have appeared at our border and beyond. As new information becomes available for screening processes is provided to the appropriate decisionmakers which can ensure that we use all our tools to protect the United States from individuals who may present a security concern. Recently in 2014 we instituted the pre adjudicated threat recognition Intelligence Operations Team which we call patriot initiative, an important part of the screening process. Vice personnel and coordination with state and see vp use the results of the automated screening process to identify individuals of concern, those individuals are referred specifically, in 20 countries. And identify individuals of concern early in the visa application process which allows us to utilize lawenforcement tools in country to participate in interviews and engage international Law Enforcement partners for additional information, and prior to these issuances. And 4 consular officers refuse visas. Ice action for officer screening, and also of facilitates traveling individuals. To targets of interest. In fiscal year 2015 alone, it screen approximately 2 million visa applicants from designated high risk locations. Contributing to the refusal of 8,000. Of those refusals, 2200 applicants have some suspected connection to terrorism. And to enhance and 60 records in the United States as a result of these operations globally. With 18 million enhancement that congress provided, operations expanded six additional posts since last year. The single largest expansion of the program in its 13 year history. Further using the same money eyes will expand four additional locations move which will result in 50 increase in expansion of the program globally in two years. This record expansion was made possible by the additional congressional funding by cp and ices joint initiative for screening and vetting in the National Capital region in collaboration with department of state and sites election postelection and expansion. To get their eyes and states are joining overseas personnel integrating staff to enhance regular time information. The state Department Personnel are collectively identifying ways to further improve screening and vetting constantly, to identify the most critical embassies for future expansion. Thank you for inviting me to testify, for your continued support of the ice mission and lawenforcement mission overseas. H s i is committed to working with this committee to prevent an combat threats to our nation and look forward to more. The chair recognizes the assistant secretary miss bond to testified. Good morning. Ranking member thompson and distinguished members of the committee, thank you for this opportunity to testify today on the topic of security vetting for each applicants. The department of state and Partner Agencies throughout the federal government take our commitment to protect americas borders and citizens seriously and we constantly have an update. My written statement which i request into the record describes the rigorous screening regimen that applies to all these categories. And the vast majority of these applicants and all immigrants, interviewed by councilor officer. Every counselor officer completes an extensive Training Course with a strong emphasis on border security, Fraud Prevention, interagency coordination and interviewing techniques. All these applicant data ive vented against databases including terrorist identity data bases that contain millions of records found ineligible for a visas or derogatory information exists. We fingerprint nearly all of these applicants and screen them against the dhs and fbi databases with no suspected terrorist wanted person, immigration violators and criminals. All these applicants are screened against photos of known or suspected terrorists and prior visa applicants. When the interagency screening process shows potentially disqualifying derogatory information the counselor officer suspends visa processing and submit a request for a washingtonbased interagency security advisory opinion preview conducted by federal Law Enforcement, intelligence agencies and departments of state. The department of Homeland Security patriot system and visa Security Program as described provide additional protection at certain overseas post, dhs, immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, more than 20 embassies and consulatess and threat locations provide on said setting of these that applications and other lawenforcement support to counselor officers. Security reviews did not stop when the visa is issued, the department and Partner Agencies continuously match new threat information of existing visas. We refuse more than a million visa applications a year. Since 2001 the department has revoked more than based on information that surfaced after issuance of the visa. This includes nearly 10,000 visas revoked for suspected links to terrorism based on information that surfaced after issuance. Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member thompson and distinguished members of the committee the department of state has no higher priority than safety of fellow citizens at home and overseas and the security of the travelling public. Every decision is a National Security decision. We appreciate the support of congress as we work to strengthen our defenses. I encourage each of you to visit our consular section when you are abroad. Id look forward to your questions, thank you. I recognize myself for questioning. I think the most important mission, and identifying threats, and keeping them from coming into the country. We are here today primarily as a result of the San Bernardino shooting. And the fact that a Pakistani Foreign national was granted a visa in the United States and it was divulged that social media at had not been reviewed prior to coming in to the United States or as part of the visa application process, something as fundamental that any employer before they hire someone that i am aware of checked, on social media, yet we see that antiquated system we want to bring to the 21st century when it comes to something so vitally important as the nations security. I understand theres nothing derogatory on the facebook account. Mr. Cohan mazes issues as well that the department was not looking at social media, it was my understanding, there were three putt that programs watched, looking specifically at the syrian Refugee Program. Is important to note that since may, 40 suspected jihadists were caught entering through the syrian refugee process. Many of not all had links to isis. My first question, and 10 million these applicants. Year. And hundreds of thousands of refugees, when we look at 10,000 Syrian Refugees the American People most concerned with. And directors agent i would like for the record to be clear, when mr. Cohans suggestion, for the use of social media and the department of Homeland Security is false. And to debate, 33 instances in the department where components argue social media, and it is not we are not doing comprehensively as a department and as you know, one of the big pushes has been to organize departmental information in a way that complements various missions of components. And how can we organize ourselves to use the system most effectively across all the missions the department performs. I want to give you the opportunity to respond because it made a big deal in the media. What was the task force for . My task force was formed on the fifteenth of december, and the policy in the department was written in 2012, authorise use of social media. At this point with respect to Syrian Refugees stream, we are reviewing social media in those cases where there are existing flags of concern, we are building as quickly as we can to build to the point where we would in fact be screening the entire body of syrian refugee applicants, we are prioritizing as we bring new resources online, prioritizing resources where we detect the greatest risk, we discuss some of that yesterday in the classified briefing. It is important as we talk about social me and placing context of overall screening that we do, is one full among a battery of tools we use to screen individuals so it is used in conjunction with the information we derived through Intelligence Data bases, used in conjunction with multiple interviews conducted of these individuals before they are granted admission. Particularly important to recognize those individuals are done with the benefit of intense briefing to officers. And on country conditions to a great degree of granularity that exists in countries from which they are coming whether we are talking about syria or iraq. Not only talking about syria as we bring the capability on but also in iraq. If we have the history of individuals who have been arrested for terrorist plots and more of the history of individuals having terrorist plots. In those cases where we did have intelligence we brought in terrorists. Again, that is the importance and at some other point the importance of interagency check which was not used in the same manner. I do not understand all that but this is about social media. When the director of the fbi testified here and secretary of homeland, the database to properly vet. My question is are we checking social media for the 10,000 Syrian Refugees. Flags of concern adding resources quickly so we use that in fact the higher body. High risk. And moving the population. My next question these visas Security Units in the embassy, these are the high risk countries, seems to me you dont have the capability at to get algorithms, check social media, my recommendation would be that this be expanded, the social media checking and vetting not just to the 10,000 Syrian Refugees but all the Security Units across the globe. That is our intent. To be as comprehensive as we can indeed ability to allow the maximum amount of fighting against that particular data set for the purposes of the mission. It is not limited. We started with the k 1s and refugees, a starting set, the longerterm plan is to apply that capability against all of the vetting responsibilities. You have my strong support for the expansion into anything we do to help you. With that i recognize the Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Speaking of waiting, on your line of questioning, relative to the it Security Program, lev kubiak, we historically have had six new high risk these that issued authorized, it is my understanding that in the 2016 omnibus appropriation it did not provide Adequate Funding to operate the expanded number of visa Security Programs. If we are mandating for you to do more, how are you going to expand the visa Security Program . Thank you for the question. The funding we are providing in f y 15 also was accompanied by the ability to carry some of that money into f y 16. We have been very judiciously using the money, reapportioning the money around the globe to cover up the larger threats as we see them developing, we were able to use some of the money given in 15 and 16 for that expansion, and expansions of th